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Cancer

Our Background

I wanted to take a brief moment to let you all know about a special running team we have created at Myriad Genetics. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Ragnar Relay, Wasatch Back race. For those of you who aren’t, it is a 192 mile relay style running race that goes from Logan, Utah to Park City, Utah. The race lasts around 24 hours, so most of the participants will have to run some portion of the race during the night. Teams are composed of 12 individuals who split up into two vehicles to finish the race. Needless to say, it’s quite an adventure. Over the last few months, a group of employees has been meeting together to organize a team for this race. However, we didn’t just want to run a normal Ragnar.

We realized there was a great need in the company to help employees focus on and become more engaged with the customer. Sadly, many of us do not get to interact with customers on a regular basis. The Ragnar race seemed like a great way to increase engagement with customers on a more intimate level. To this end, we decided to try and recruit Myriad Genetics patients to run with us in this race. For the employees involved, this will give a particularly deep interaction with one of our customers. A typicall interaction for most employees is when Myriad brings in a patient speaker and we listen to them for 30 minutes while they tell us their story. However, in this race, Myriad employees will have the opportunity to spend 24 hours with at least one patient in a more intimate setting. Hopefully, each of us involved with the race will not only walk away with a greater appreciation for our customers, but also with new friends.

Originally, we planned on only having enough support to fill a single 12 person team. However, after our initial meeting we had 18 employees who expressed interest. We didn’t want to turn away that many people, so we decided to expand and create two Ragnar teams.

Our marketing department also saw this as a great opportunity for their BRAC pack and Lynch Pin patient speaker group. Even though many of their patient speakers reside outside of the state of Utah, our marketing department has agreed to fly in six of their patient speakers to participate in the race. In addition to those six, an additional Myriad patient and cancer survivor from Salt Lake City has agreed to participate.

The final piece of our race, and the part that I think truly says a lot about the generosity of Myriad employees, involves fundraising. Each member of our team has agreed to raise $500 for the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, bringing our fundraising goal to $12,000 for the team as a whole. In exchange for our fundraising, the Huntsman Cancer Foundation paid our entrance fee for the sold out race. However, our ability to race is contingent on meeting our fundraising minimum. If we don’t get to the $12,000 minimum, we won’t be able to race. That’s where we need your help. If you would like to make a donation, or see how far we have come with our fundraising so far, please visit: